I'm still not sure if anyone here would like to read my reviews of things, but I wanted to post this as it was one of my first reviews that I did for pleasure and I really like it.
The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennett is a book that is a modern day adaption of Jane Austen’s, Pride and Prejudice it tells the story in a unique way and makes the story that is timeless, relatable to people that in world today. “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries chronicled Lizzie’s life as a twenty-four-year-old grad student, struggling under a mountain of student loans and living at home with her two sisters—beautiful Jane Bennet and reckless Lydia Bennet.”(pemberleydigital.com) The characters that you know and love from the original book are taken out of that world, and they are recreated in our world where they live in real life and they must make their way around life as a modern day young adult. Here we see Lizzie going through what many of the target audience is going through, grad school and trying to have a life and figure out what she is going to do in the future. This book is a novel based off of the web series, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries but seeing as she is letting you into her life so to speak, we see a lot more of the finer details that we might miss through the videos, and we get a closer look at Lizzie’s thoughts on things. “Written by Bernie Su, the series’ executive producer, co-creator, head writer, and director, along with Kate Rorick, the novelist, TV writer, and consulting producer on the series, the novel features a journal-entry format and design, complementing the existing web series, while including plenty of fresh twists to delight fans and new readers alike. The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet expands on the phenomenon that captivated a generation and reimagines the Pride and Prejudice story like it’s never been done before.”(pemberleydigital.com)
As a fan of both the web series which I was introduced to when they started airing three years ago I had been a little bit skeptical at first because I was not sure how well that it could be adapted to our world, and when they adapted it that they might change some of the important plot points and characters. I was delighted to find out that they had changed things yes, but they hadn’t changed anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary to the adaption and the way that they were writing the characters. They took a story that was a classic, and they modernized it putting a new spin on it and giving it to a whole new generation to enjoy. They gave the characters new meaning, and new direction which they needed to do in order for the way that they were writing the story, and the vison that they had to make sense. The writers created new and interesting challenges for the characters that you love from the original novel, and they gave them different things that they had to deal with in their own ways in their own time. It is the same things and characters that you love the original novel, only this time they are being put into our world, and you can relate to them more because you see yourself in their characteristics and personalities as well as what they had to deal with.
The characters are the same in some ways, and different in some ways because they have moved into a different world than the one that they were put into when Jane Austen was writing the original novel, and it wouldn’t make sense for them to be the same way that they were in the original novel. The main Bennet sister Lizzie is described as the most intelligent, and quick witted as well as being clever and being able to converse with anyone. In the modernization of the original work Lizzie is a grad student who is working on her thesis, and in the way that they portray her in the novel you can see that they kept these traits intact with her character. Darcy in the original novel is also described as intelligent and forthright and someone who judges to harshly, making him the ideal match for Lizzie. The modernizing of the novel we see that he shares these same traits as the original character, but he owns a media company that Lizzie does her thesis for. Lydia in the original novel is described as gossipy, immature, and self-loving. In the modern version she plays more of a vocal role, she is still the same way but you see a switch when she is involved in a sex scandal with George Wickham, claiming that he will post a video of them on a website that eventually gets taken down.